For years on my radio and TV show I was known for saying, “The government lies, lies all the time, and lies even when the truth would serve it well.” Whether or not one agrees completely with that description, I’m sure you’d agree that being able to know when the government is lying to us is pretty important.

Right now I’m going to reveal one of the most pervasive and long-term lies operating in America.

How many times have you seen memes, or heard people say, that Americans have worked their whole lives and paid in to Social Security, and that is THEIR money and is not at all like…say…Welfare. But is that really true?

In point of fact, it’s not true. Social Security runs exactly like welfare. The only difference between Social Security and Welfare is what you’ve been led to believe, and that has been a lie.

What Americans see on their paycheck stubs, that is commonly known as the social security tax, appears as “FICA”, which stands for Federal Insurance Contribution Act. Even the name is a lie. We’ll get to that shortly.

American workers quite properly believe the tax they pay from each paycheck, which appear as “FICA” on your check-stub, is paid into a special trust fund controlled by the U.S. government and held until you reach the age of eligibility, at which time you can start drawing out your own money to make your retirement more comfortable. I say American workers “quite properly believe” that because that’s what U.S. politicians have told the American people for 80 years. The famous Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, is supposed to have said, “If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it.” Well, that’s certain true of the U.S. government’s Social Security lie.

I said U.S. politicians have been lying to you for 80 years. That’s a pretty strong statement. But I’m not the one who said it – it was said by the United States Supreme Court. Now of course the Court didn’t come out and say the politicians are lying, but in the two seminal cases dealing with how the Social Security statutes operate, what the Court described is exactly the opposite of what the politicians have been telling you. Those two cases are Helvering v. Davis and Steward Machine Company v. Davis.

But before I discuss what the Court said in those two cases, let me share a constitutional perspective with you that should make it clear that the FICA tax doesn’t actually apply to the vast majority of Americans. The U.S. Supreme Court has said that contracting for labor, whether you are the one who will be laboring, or the one contracting for someone else’s labor, is an unalienable right. And the Court has repeatedly ruled that no tax may be laid upon the exercise of a right because “The power to tax is the power to destroy”. So, since making a contract for labor is a right, no tax can be laid upon it.

Furthermore, the Court ruled that FICA is an excise tax. And a well-settled point of law is than an excise tax is a tax upon a privilege. Since a privilege is something you do not have a right to do, and making a contract for your labor is a right, then certainly an excise [privilege] tax could never be levied upon your right to contract your labor. Do you see why they have to lie to you? The can’t get around your rights but they can, and have, caused you to believe social security is something other than what it really is.

So what did the Court say about Social Security that proves the politicians liars?

First, the Court pointed out that the controlling statute requires FICA taxes “to be paid into the Treasury like internal-revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way.” In other words, they are NOT paid into a trust fund. Second, the fact that these FICA taxes are not earmarked for any purpose means Congress can, and does, spend those taxes on anything it wants. Third, it is absolutely not “Insurance” as the name “Federal Insurance Contribution Act” would lead an honest person to believe. Insurance is a contract that can be enforced in a court of law if the terms of the contract are not met. However, the Supreme Court stated that if Congress repealed the Social Security Act tomorrow no one could bring suit against the government because there is no contract; it’s merely an entitlement program.

In 1983 Congress amended the Social Security Act to put some new polish on the old lie. It inserted a bunch of verbiage about how the Secretary of the Treasury and Managing Trustee of the Old-Age and Survivors’ Trust Fund are to move funds around. Yet it’s still a scam. If a law requires me to give you $100, and another part of that law requires you to give me $100, what’s the effect of that law? That’s precisely what Congress did in 1983, using some very complex language, in an attempt to make it more difficult for the American people to detect the lie.

So, if the trust funds are a scam, which they are, and don’t possess a penny of the money you’ve paid in the form of that “additional income tax” how does the Social Security Administration pay benefits? Here’s how: The Social Security Administration sends its anticipated outlay to the Department of Health and Human Services who then packages that with other expenses and sends it to Congress to be included as a budget item in the budget Congress passed. I said that the Department of Health and Human Services packages the Social Security Administration’s funding request with “others” and sends that on to Congress? What “others”? Of course there are many, but one of them is Welfare. In other words, social security payments are funded by Congress each year in the exact same way as is Welfare, because they’re both entitlement programs.

The bottom line is that when FICA is taken from your check, not one penny goes into a trust fund from which you will receive a stipend during retirement, and it never has. As the Supreme Court stated, FICA is just another, additional, income tax. Money for Social Security is built into the annual budget appropriations process in the exact same manner as Welfare because the legal truth of it is that it’s just welfare for old folks.

I cover this material, along with much much more, in my book “Income Tax: Shattering The Myths” which can be seen at incometaxtruth.com. Or you can do your own research.

These facts are often met with anger by those who’ve bought the government’s lie. Sometimes the anger is directed toward the government, sometimes toward the messenger. Wherever your anger is directed, you deserve to be angry. Americans have been fed a monstrous lied for 8 decades now. Isn’t it about time for every American to know the truth? If you believe so, please share this article/video.